Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has played down an incident on one of the budget airline's flights in which a man was reportedly sucked out of a window which shattered in mid-air.
Speaking to The Travel Expert, Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said the passenger was not sucked out of the aircraft, which was operated by Ryanair's subsidiary Malta Air.
O'Leary's account of the incident
Describing the incident, Mr O'Leary said: "The window shatters, the oxygen masks come down, the pilots immediately take the aircraft steeply down to a non-pressurised altitude so it is a very upsetting, traumatic experience for everybody on board."
Mr O'Leary apologised to the passenger. "We're very sorry to the passenger who was seated in row 11F," he said. "He did not, however, get sucked out the window and all these kind of nonsensical claims."
Passenger's account
Sixty-one-year-old Ljubisa Karović of Serbia was asleep on board flight FR1879 from Greece to Germany on July 10 when the deafening sound of the window shattering woke him. Sitting in 11F, objects flew through the air and out the window as other passengers desperately tried to hold him in place.
Mr Karović sustained burns and bruises on his right arm, which stretch from his armpit to his chest. Now, with his head supported by a neck brace.
"The explosion is what I remember," Mr Karović told The Guardian. "Its the noise before the chaos, the noise that is always there when I close my eyes to sleep."
Mr Karović claims he was partially sucked out of the window before being pulled back in. He fainted between two or three times during the ordeal.
His wife Svetlana Grković, who was seated three rows behind, recalled the moment oxygen masks came down and how passengers held her husband in place. She said a passenger used a bag, then a suitcase to plug the hole.
Mr Karović was rushed to hospital once the plane landed, but he is living with pain.
Legal response
His lawyer Vasilis Tsiaras said Mr Karović being alive was nothing short of a miracle. "Ljubisa dipped in and out of death," Mr Tsiaras told the outlet. "When the cabin lost pressure he was hurled out of the window from his chest up and immediately lost consciousness. He was on that plane heading to Germany to celebrate his brother's birthday. Instead, at 15,000ft he ended up with his head and right arm outside the aircraft as it moved at a speed of more than 600km/h. Imagine that."
Mr O'Leary said lawyers are "making more claims by the day" and the airline will "deal with that in due course."
